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'The performances give unalloyed pleasure. Lott's still-radiant soprano combines beautifully with the vibrant, musky mezzo of Kirchschlanger, while Jo ...'I'll leave you to experience the conjuring for yourself. For conjuring it is: any element of the didactic is totally absent in this seamless garment ...» More

This album is not yet available for downloadHYP202CDs Super-budget price sampler — Deleted

'More than just a highlight sampler. This is a classy collection, brought together with a great deal of care and attention to musical programming seldom found in this kind of CD … A stocking-filler any music lover would appreciate' (Scotland ...» More

I want to declare my love to you
All in a word,
I would give it to the airy breezes
To carry it cheerfully away.

They carry to you, beloved,
The perfect loving word;
You hear it every hour,
You hear it everywhere.

And during your nightly slumbers
When you have scarcely closed your eyes,
My image will follow you
Even into your deepest dreams.

The first of a set of six duets, composed variously between 1836 and 1844, which are recorded here complete. The combination of E major and a compound time signature, with its characteristic skipping rhythms, always brings out the best in Mendelssohn, and here the sense of unrepressed elation is magically conveyed.

I want to declare my love to you
All in a word,
I would give it to the airy breezes
To carry it cheerfully away.

They carry to you, beloved,
The perfect loving word;
You hear it every hour,
You hear it everywhere.

And during your nightly slumbers
When you have scarcely closed your eyes,
My image will follow you
Even into your deepest dreams.

The first of a set of six duets, composed variously between 1836 and 1844, which are recorded here complete. The combination of E major and a compound time signature, with its characteristic skipping rhythms, always brings out the best in Mendelssohn, and here the sense of unrepressed elation is magically conveyed.

How beautiful were the woods and fields!
Yet how sad the world is now!
Gone is the beautiful summertime,
And after joy came sorrow.

We knew nothing of discomfort;
We sat under the canopy of leaves
Content and happy in the sunshine
And sang unto the world.

We poor little birds are now very sad;
We have no home left here.
We must now fly away
To strange far-off lands.

The challenge with this text was not so much the change of mood which is indicated between the first two stanzas (accomplished here by moving from a plaintive G minor to the warmth of E flat major) as the more abrupt flip of the coin going into the third. Mendelssohn judges it to perfection by unexpectedly moving to A flat major (‘Und sangen’) before shifting sideways back into G minor.

Oh, how soon the round of nature dies away,
Changing spring into winter!
Oh, how quickly, into sad silence
All happiness is changed!
Soon the last sounds vanish!
Soon the last songbirds have gone!
Soon the last green has fled!
All have returned home!

Pleasure changes into yearning anguish!
Were you a dream, you thoughts of love?
Sweet as the spring, and quickly gone?
Only one thing will never change:
That is the yearning which never fades away.

Arguably the finest of the Op 63 duets, Herbstlied is another of Mendelssohn’s almost self-perpetuating miniatures which, once started, creates the impression of having been conceived in one go. Here the sadness tinges rather than saturates the music, and the moment where a shaft of light appears momentarily to break through (‘War’t ihr ein Traum’) inspires a radiant outburst.

O wert thou in the cauld blast,
On yonder lea, on yonder lea,
My plaidie to the angry airt,
I’d shelter thee, I’d shelter thee;
Or did Misfortune’s bitter storms
Around thee blaw, around thee blaw
Thy bield should be thy bosom,
To share it a’, to share it a’.

O were I in the wildest waste
Sae black and bare, sae black and bare,
The desert were a Paradise,
If thou wert there, if thou wert there.
Or were I Monarch o’ the globe,
Wi’ thee to reign, wi’ thee to reign,
The brightest jewel in my Crown
Wad be my Queen, wad be my Queen.

Robert Burns (1759-1796)

It is always the small touches which make all the difference with a composer as fastidious as Mendelssohn. Here he inflects the little piano introduction when it reappears between the two stanzas with a chromatically passing A flat in the middle voice which adds just a sufficient tinge of harmonic spice to heighten the senses without in any way disrupting the musical flow.

The lily-of-the-valley rings out over the valley,
Resounding clear and bright:
So gather round all together and dance,
You lovely flowers!
The blue and yellow and white blooms,
All gather around,
Forget-me-nots and speedwells
And violets are all there.

In no time the lily-of-the-valley plays
And they all dance;
The moon looks down happily
And has fun also.
But the hoar-frost is very annoyed,
He comes into the valley;
The lily-of-the-valley stops playing,
Away go all the flowers.

But hardly has the hoar-frost left the meadow
Than the lily-of-the-valley once again quickly
Calls everyone to the spring festivities,
Ringing out twice as cheerfully.
Now I can no longer stay inside,
The lily-of-the-valley is calling to me too:
The flowers are going to the dance
And I am joining them!

The Op 63 set is rounded off in suitably high spirits with a duet which in places recalls the roughly contemporaneous incidental music Mendelssohn was composing to Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.